


pain past cure

by Cheshire



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, PWP, Porn with some plot, Psychosis, Self-Loathing, Violent Sex, does angst count as plot, does crippling mental health count as plot, violence in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 08:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20654264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheshire/pseuds/Cheshire
Summary: To the boar prince’s surprise, Felix’s presence is enough to silence the voices of the dead.BL, pwp, full edgelord Dimitri, consensual but violent.





	pain past cure

He’s been watching you from a distance, as he did five years ago, as he did ever since he saw what you’d become. Felix alone among the living follows you--almost like one of the spectres of the dead. He is silent, distant, never approaching. You wish he’d make demands of you, as he always had in the past.

_"Tell him to leave,"_ your father says, gentler than usual, without the same urgency as his final request of you. _ "He doesn't belong here with us, not in eternal torment. The only thing that matters now is revenge."_

You might even listen to your father. You know you should, but you allow yourself moments of selfish desire, to have your friend near you, so you remain in the cathedral even as the day draws to a close, and he does too.

Felix should leave--to go out, far and away, to find whatever passions he may yet have, and to leave you in the darkness where you belong. You belong to the dead, and he to the living. Your paths have long since parted.

Yet he always stays, he lingers, as if his presence can draw you back into the light. He cannot. You wish he could, for his sake, but he cannot.

“What do you want?” you ask at last, when the sun’s fallen low in the sky, and the cathedral grows dark.

Felix doesn’t know--you know that to be true the moment the question is asked. He’s always so decisive when he knows. (He was the first to take your hand all those years ago, the first to brush his lips against yours when you were boys, to whisper words you’d only ever dreamed of speaking aloud.)

Eventually, Felix answers. “To talk to you, if you still have enough humanity left to listen.”

_"Be careful, Your Highness,"_ Glenn said, his voice a pained hiss. It’s rare you from him, You remember how the fire claimed him, how his flesh scorched and warped, sloughing off his bones, how his final words to you were lost in his agony--but he has ever been a doting brother. It's no surprise that he bothers to speak now. _"You'll only hurt him."_

You turn to face Felix. “You waste your time. Leave me. Go spend your efforts on living.”

“_You’re_ living," Felix said.

At that, Glenn laughs. It a miserable cackling, crackling sound, like blood poured over fire, the last sounds you associate with him. _"Send him away, for my sake. Please, he'll only end up like the rest of us. You’ll kill him too." _

He’ll kill himself if he insists on following you--just like everyone else that protected you, those lingering souls burning, charred, damned until you can free them. Yet a part of you wants Felix alongside you, so that you could walk this path together, as you once walked all paths together, wherever they might lead. You banish the thought. He is too precious to you for that.

"I live, for now, but my life isn't my own. I am the will of the dead. I must deliver them their vengeance."

"And then?" Felix demands. "Supposing you don't fail and die the moment you step into the Empire? Which you will."

"Then I join the dead in the eternal flames, as I was meant to from the start."

You may as well have punched Felix, with the hurt that flickers across his face, hidden away almost as soon as it appeared. Your death frightens him. You understand (truly, completely) for you know death all too well, but you left that fear behind five years ago in the holy tomb.

_"You'll only hurt him,"_ Glenn says again, this time sounding betrayed. You should've listened. You're breaking his little brother's heart. Glenn doesn't need to watch this, not after everything else he's endured because of you. You should have _listened_.

Your father doesn’t bother guilting you--you already stew in guilt, the King doesn’t need to remind you of all your mistakes and all the people you’ve dragged down with you. Instead, he says, _ "He doesn't understand. He _can't_ understand. We need justice. We need vengeance. We cannot rest without it, nor can you. The pain cannot end until--"_

You have forgotten how fast Felix can be, and now you are duly reminded. Felix grabs you by the cape, pulling you _ down_, and his other hand wraps around your neck, buries itself into the hair at the base of your neck.

Then his mouth is hot over yours. His lips are as soft as you remember them, though his teeth are sharper.

Your mind goes blank.

There’s nothing--silence. Quiet, unearthly silence, the dead are gone, your mind is crystal clear. You loathe the clarity, it’s nervous, cold, and the doubt sets in when their voices are gone. You feel terribly alone. You feel terribly _ alive_. You feel everything yet almost nothing at all. You’re certainly thinking nothing at all, except that this is both terrible and wondrous--you kiss him back, and he bites as he likes to do. You hum your pleasure.

When he parts, your lower lip is red with your own blood. His lips are bloody too, and you like the color on him.

You realize you’re staring at him. He’s glaring at you. You suppose this is surprising return to normalcy. This is how it’s been since Felix saw you for what you were after the rebellion, a monster, a _ boar _ that destroyed everything in its path. He abandoned you for his other friends--better friends, kinder friends, the sort of people he deserves, not you. Anyone but you.

_You’ll only hurt him_, you think. They’re your own thoughts. You don’t need Glenn to remind you. To the very core of your being, you know it to be the truth.

His hand slips free of your hair, and his thumb traces the blood on your lips before wiping it away.

His touch sends a tremor through you--guilt, for you have no right to this anymore, you lost the right to it long ago--and you step away, but he is a swordsman that could’ve been a dancer. You step away, and he moves with you, no closer than he was, and no further either.

The dead are quiet. You know they’re still there, still enduring their torment, still longing for revenge, but you--

You long for revenge too, but you long for other things besides. When you look at Felix, you wonder what he still feels for you, if he even feels anything at all, five years later and five years apart.

As gently as you can, you dare take his hand into your own. You lick the blood from his fingertips, and he watches you wide-eyed. You think he’s beautiful, a hunter in the night. And you, you’re a boar with a crown that you never earned.

Felix’s hand comes away bruised along his knuckles where you held him. You have no idea how, although it was your fault. You _ tried _ your best to be gentle, to not break anything, to be someone that can be good to him. (You tried for so many years, before you gave up everything for justice, for vengeance, for the only thing that you still deserve.) _ You’ll only hurt him. _

He hits you, a fist across the jaw. At first, it feels like nothing, then the pain follows as you run your tongue along your teeth to check if they’re still there. You deserved that surely, for any number of reasons.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Felix says. “Like you’re just some beast.”

You don’t know what he means. You look at him as you always have. You don’t know any other way.

“Am I not?” you ask.

Felix looks lost. You _ are _ lost, which makes the two of you a pathetic match--hopeless, truly. You’re not sure why he tries. You wish he wouldn’t. You wished he would give up on you and find someone else to love, someone that didn’t already have one foot in the grave.

He kisses you again with a wanting that tastes like honey. You like it. Then he hits you again, and you like that too, same spot, harder, and this time the pain begins as soon as he makes contact.

_ Harder_, you want to say. _ Again_, you want to say, as if repentance is even possible for you, but your chances of salvation are long past gone.

Perhaps he knows what you want, or perhaps Felix hates you enough to grant your unspoken wishes anyway.

His next blow glances against your armor, the clang of it echoes through the cathedral. You feel nothing. There’s a simple enough solution for that, and you let your fur cape fall to the ground and undo the clasps to your armor.

Felix helps you out of your armor as a squire might help his lord. His touch is light and dexterous, and you feel about as undone as your armor once your skin is bare against air.

You kiss each of his bruised knuckles, though you know that won’t heal him. When you let go, you shape his hand into a fist--carefully, you avoid breaking any of his fingers, and you’re embarrassingly proud of that small feat. “Go on,” you say.

You’ve only just stepped back when he’s upon you--but he wraps his arm around your neck. He kisses you on the lips, his tongue searches for yours, his body close and warm. You gasp for air once he frees you. It turns into a hiss as he bites down on your jaw, where he’s struck you twice now.

Then he strikes, fast as ever, short and quick below your ribcage. You should’ve seen it coming, but you’re mostly seeing stars. You double over, and Felix’s foot catches you in the shoulder, kicking you onto your back.

With the wind knocked out of you, your first gasp of air burns your throat. He doesn’t give you a chance for a second breath.

His hands wrap around your throat. He has more strength in his uninjured hand, but he knows what he’s doing. Felix climbs atop you, legs straddling your waist as he leans in close, his weight against your neck. He kisses you again with a kindness that makes your heart yearn. You can’t respond, that would require you to breathe, but his lips against yours leaves your mind blissfully empty.

You need air, but you want him.

Your vision pales, then darkens, then pales again. You feel the dull roar of fire. You hear screaming, you hear your father’s voice in the distance searching for your step-mother amidst the chaos. You feel death come so sweetly close--

You stop Felix. You grasp his wrists (you wonder if they’ve always been so thin, or if it’s you that’s grown) and push him back. “I’m sorry. I still need to finish what she started. I need to tear her head from her neck and send her soul into the abyss where it belongs. I must.”

He stares at you. His pupils are blown wide, pools of black that seem to go on forever. The last light in the cathedral falls upon him like a veil.

Softer, as a promise, a gift, the very last thing you have left to give, you say, “After that, my life is yours to take.”

“That,” Felix replies, “is the last thing I want from you.”

Why does he look so heartbroken? If your life won’t make his whole again, what will? Perhaps it’s a worthless gift. Your life has little meaning to you. Why would it hold any value to him?

You release your hold on him, leaving harsh red welts on his skin. Carefully, to avoid startling him, you sit upright. Felix doesn’t move away, leaving the two of you barely apart. He looks up at you like he never has before. You’re keenly aware of how much taller than him you are now, and how much smaller he seems. It’s not Felix that changed though, it’s you--it was always you.

You rest your fingertips on the buckles of his overcoat. Felix does you the favor of undoing them, shrugging out of his furs. You help him with the layers below, which only results in torn cloth and wool discarded onto the ground--you find that you don’t care. He wore too much anyway. You leave him his boots. You like his boots.

He shivers, his pale skin exposed to the cool night air. You can feel his cock hard against your stomach. You know better than to touch it, not with your strength. He’s made it clear to you before what you can and can’t touch. You don’t imagine the rules have changed.

His breath hitches as you run a hand down his back, tracing his spine until you reach his tail bone. You adjust your grip on him and his weight against you, but you’re only delaying the inevitable. _ You will hurt him_.

You slide a finger inside of him. The first sound Felix makes is a hiss of pain, and you almost release him entirely--but he grabs you by the arm and holds you steady. Then he whines wordlessly into your neck as you stretch him wider, a second finger, until you think you’ve done about enough.

He must agree, because he hands you a concoction, and you recoil from it. You’re in a cathedral, you’re aware of that, there’s unlikely a pot of oils anywhere to be found. “You…” You trail off. You try again, distilling all your thoughts, or lack thereof, down to a single point, “No.”

“The vulneraries worked last time.”

“No,” you disagree, because he’s wrong. Last time, Felix feigned illness to hide the blood and bruises from everyone. It wasn’t you that nursed his wounds back then, though you had offered. He hadn’t wanted to see you again, so you'd nursed your own shattered heart instead. “_Last time_ was a nightmare.”

“I liked it.” He smirks at you in a way that is absolutely unfair. It's mirthless but the way his cheek dimples reminds you that you have a heart, and it can still soar.

You can say no however many times you like, but with his red eyes turned dark, with his skin glowing from his own heat, with every sharp breath that caught in his throat, it was easy to believe that Felix wants you as much as you want him. You can’t say no to him, not as he is right now. You don’t have it in you.

You pick him up into your arms and stand up--Felix cries out from the motion, buries his face against your shoulder, and you hear muffled cursing.

You carry him to the remnants of the cathedral’s dais and lay him down on his back. The concoctions are, you observe, an improvement over vulneraries. It’s viscous and slick, and you find that you’re comfortable with Felix’s legs pulled up in front of you, your hand palm deep into him.

He gasps, cheeks flushed, and he writhes against you. You watch, sometimes toying with him gently, sometimes pressing into him with more strength than you should dare--but you do, because he’s glorious. You’re too weak to resist.

He fumbles as he reaches for you, grasping blindly. His hand brushes against your cheek, and then a second attempt catches your hair, and he _ pulls_\--because of course he does.

“I want--_ah_\--” You wait as he recovers from the way your hand hooks inside him, sending a jolt through his body. You may be enjoying this too much. “_You_, inside me. Hurry up.” 

You comply. You draw him up towards you, his legs pushed back. He’s picturesque, dark boots leading into pale skin. You hesitate one last time when you think about how easily you could break him, but Felix looks like he’s seconds away from attempting to kill you.

_You’ll hurt him_. Yes, you know. You don’t care, or you do, but you’d sooner hurt him than deny him. This is your poison to pick.

Besides, you are not the man you were five years ago. You wonder how it would feel to break him.

You give your cock one pass of the concoction and sink yourself into him. The sound from the back of Felix’s throat is guttural and primal. You want to hear it again, but it fades into a sweet, trembling sigh. Then you have to settle for his gasps of interchangeable pain and pleasure.

“_Harder_,” he says between a hiss and a moan, and you do as you’re told. “Harder,” he says again, and you have half a mind to snap at him that there is no harder than this.

You know how Felix likes his sex. When you were younger, _you_ had wanted to treat him softly, gently, as if he were some precious treasure, but it’s never mattered to him what _ you _ like. _ You _ are always the one that changes, because now each time he screams, you fuck him harder--as demanded, but also because you want to, you hunger for it. You plunge into him with the same vigor you use against your enemies. You lay waste to him. You are a monster, and you enjoy it.

He takes your breath away, the way his body responds to what you inflict on him.

When he comes, it’s in a white splatter across your stomach and a tremulous shudder before he becomes pliable beneath you. Felix speaks softly, but it’s addled, more sounds than words. You pay it no mind. You know it’s not your name he speaks.

You take a bit longer to finish. His legs wrap around your waist, so you continue until you’re done. You come inside him, because he’s drawn you up too close to allow anything else. He hums, stoic as ever but you think you’ve pleased him.

Gingerly, you disentangle yourself from him. You see the ring of purple bruises you’ve left around his thighs. There are specks of blood on the floor and your cock, and you turn him over just to see what you’ve done to his backside. There’s nothing that you think will scar, and you make use of his clothes you tore off him to clean up the blood and the cum.

He’s not moving yet, though you see him trying.

You watch as he pulls himself off the ground, each movement a trial. His hair falls down his back. It’s pretty enough but you reach out to brush his hair aside, so that you can see the ugly purple and yellow bruises that you’ve left on him. You really do destroy everything you touch.

It takes a while before Felix attempts to stand. You reach out to him, but he shrugs you away. Very well. You suppose you should know he has little need of you, beyond what you’ve already done.

Walking is harder for him. This time you reach out, and you insist. You give him your cape, wrapping it around him both for whatever warmth it can offer, and for his dignity too. He leans against you as if you two were children again, tired and battered after a long spar.

You walk with him halfway across the cathedral. He turns to you then, and he says, “You’ll die if you hold course to Enbarr. You can’t make it the Emperor alone. We’d be lucky if we even make it to the city.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“And then what?” he asks, exhausted both physically and emotionally. “Wait for me to kill you?”

“If you don’t want to, then don’t. But know that if I could choose how I die, it would be by your hand.”

Felix looks at you with something akin to revulsion. You suppose that’s fair, as a living man regarding a dead one. You don’t blame him, in any case. His only mistake is that he still hasn’t abandoned you, when he should’ve long ago. He certainly should have by now.

You watch him leave, walking slowly across the bridge towards the rest of the monastery.

When you can’t see him anymore, when he’s too far to occupy your mind entirely, the voices of the dead return.


End file.
